Maroon Bells

Ever since we came to Colorado we've always heard people talk about how pretty Maroon Bells is and that we should go there. After looking into the camp sites and having to book 6 months in advance, I can now confirm that they are definitely correct.

Ali and I booked a campsite at Silver Bells, which is the first campsite past the ranger station. It's a pretty nice location with the river right beside you and allows easy access both to hiking and to Aspen if you need any supplies (beer). The sites were kinda close to one another so you don't get as much privacy as you would at other locations but it was also nice you could back your car up to the site so you didn't have to haul supplies in. Another quick note is I hope you enjoy cold river water because that is the only running water on the campgrounds. Now that the campsite is out of the way, it's time to talk about the hikes.

West Maroon Trail

We got up early Friday morning and drove in so we started our first hike, West Maroon Trail, around 9:30 am. The first part of the hike is very flat and is the super touristy section that everyone goes to. The picture below is the one everyone is used to seeing. It's crazy how perfect the reflection is in the water.

After you pass Maroon Lake, which is around 9,580, you head up to Crater Lake. This trail is fairly strenuous as it goes over some rocky terrain and climbs to an elevation of 10,076. The views the entire way are very pretty and this is the last stop where you see quite a few people.

Once you get past that, you continue to climb uphill over similar terrain. When we went, there were still quite a few snowy sections so we weren't able to make it to the top. The first picture below is a view above Crater Lake with my carry on dog with me. He's got a bad back so he hikes for about 20 min and then gets carried for about 3 hours so he has a pretty solid deal. The next picture was around 11,400 and is where we started to get snowed out. We hiked along the side for a while but decided it wasn't worth it.

All in all this trail was a little over 9.5 miles round trip with around 1,400 elevation gain. It was a beautiful hike and I highly recommend it to anyone.

Maroon-Snowmass Trail to Willow Lake

The next day we started out doing the scenic loop trail. This is a very low key 1.5 mile loop that gives you a good view of the lake and also has a very good chance of seeing a moose or two, which is the only reason we did it. I recommend doing it just to say you did but it's pretty busy if you don't get there very early.

Now let's talk about the real hike. This hike starts in the same spot and goes all the way to Crater Lake so you get about 1.8 miles of the same terrain but it's still very pretty. Once you hit Carter lake you make a right and start a very long and tiring uphill climb. Since this is a hard hike, you instantly lose 99% of the people there which makes it well worth the isolation. 

After you finish the initial climb, you are on the Minnehaha Gulch portion of the trail. This part is very pretty as you are walking in the woods above the creek. The creek was running pretty hard while we were there since the snow was melting. The picture below shows part of the creek where we had to take off our shoes and walk across since the snow bridge was very very sketchy.

Once you cross the creek, you start another uphill stretch but the views are well worth it. We didn't see any moose while we were on this trail but a lot of people do. This portion of the trail follows another smaller creek and is a mixture of rocky and wooded terrain. After a mile or two, we branched off from the creek and started to lose the trail in the snow. It was about 50/50 snow and normal trail until we got to the split to either do Buckskin Pass or Willow Pass. Both were pretty snowed out but we decided to do Willow Pass. I'd say about 30% of the trail didn't have snow on it and the rest was more of a trudge through hoping we were going the right direction. In the first picture below, you can see a red arrow on where the top of the pass was. The next picture shows part of the snowed out area that we had to walk through.

While that portion of the trail wasn't much fun, it was worth it at the top of the pass. The first picture is the other side of the pass with a frozen Willow Lake to the far right. Then the other picture is where we came from. If you look at the very bottom of the valley, that is Minnehaha Gulch.

So this is probably one of my top 2 hikes ever. It may have not been as much fun, but definitely easier, without the snow and river crossing but that made it worth it. The views are amazing the entire time so I highly recommend doing it but you will need to be in shape. Without going all the way to the lake, we still did around 11 miles with over 2,920 vertical gain. It even exhausted Deuce who didn't hardly hike at all.

Maroon Creek

The last day we wanted to keep it a little more low key so we decided to do the Maroon Creek Trail. This is a 6.4 mile round trip trail that follows the creek from Maroon Lake back towards the campsite. It was more of a wooded hike and then sections of meadows. We saw a few deer and moose have been known to be around the trail. While I'm glad we did it as I love hiking next to water, it was hard to compare it to the previous hikes since you don't get the expansive mountain views on this one. However it was a nice change of pace and I'm not sure if I could do another 2,000+ hike.

So in closing, I highly recommend going here. Even with us at the campsite only 2 miles away we had to get up pretty early to get a parking spot since it's so popular. On the bright side though, a lot of people go there for the very short hike and then leave by 10ish so if you don't care about seeing wildlife earlier in the morning, I'd recommend just waiting a little while to get a parking spot, if you are camping onsite that is since they only allow buses in and out after 8:00 am.

We took a ton of pictures so if you are interested in seeing anymore, you can find them here.

Catamount Falls Trail

This weekend we decided to head to Green Mountain Falls, which is about 30ish minutes west of Colorado Springs. I'm a sucker for waterfalls and water overall so I was excited to see what this hike had to offer. 

The drive to Green Mountain Falls is pretty easy with good roads the entire time, however once you get to Green Mountain Falls, it gets a tad confusing. You actually park in the city by a little pond with an island in the middle of it with no sign of a trail around. You have to hike through a few local streets to get to the actual start of the trail and Verizon had 0 service there, so we did a lot of wandering around. I would highly recommend downloading a map before going there so you don't waste 15 minutes like we did.

Once we got our bearings, or so we thought, we were off. We were originally going to do the Crystal Falls hike but ended up starting out on the Dewey Mountain hike. It's a fairly steep climb to a little mountain overlooking Green Mountain Falls. The views weren't bad but overall I wouldn't waste your time on this one. Below is a quick picture from the top. From there, you could continue to Horseshoe Mountain and link up with the Catamount trail but we decided to backtrack and go down Hondo Ave to the start of Catamount.

Once we finally got on the correct trail, we started our upward climb again. At this point in time we were already 3 miles in from randomly roaming around other trails so it was a little tiring with all of the switchbacks. However the first mile or so of this trail was very pretty with a lot of smaller waterfalls

 After you make it to the top of the mountain, you then go on the backside of it to the "Garden of Eden". This was a pretty meadow area with a few more creeks and a path winding through pretty thick bushes. Overall I really enjoyed this area as it was completely different from the first part of the hike.

Once you get to the end of this trail, it then goes onto a gravel road where you can go right to the reservoir or left to the Ring the Peak trail and end up back at Crystal Falls. We're not big fans of hiking on a road so we backtracked down Catamount and then took Thomas Trail to Crystal Falls. Thomas Trail goes along the side of the mountain with sporadic views of the town. You then get to Crystal Falls right before you start heading back down the mountain into the town. The falls were very pretty and the short hike down followed the stream the entire time.

Minus the getting lost and roaming around a trail we weren't supposed to, I enjoyed this hike. I would say it's on the moderate side as there is a decent amount of elevation gain as soon as you get on the Catamount Trail and you have to cross at least 1 creek when you link up to the Thomas Trail.  As you can see from my GPS below, we were all over the place.

Elk Meadow Park

Since I've fallen behind on posts, it's time to double up. The next hike of the year was at Elk Meadow Park, right outside of Evergreen. The specific trails that we took were Sleepy Trail --> Elk Ridge --> Meadow View --> Too Long Trail --> Bergen Peak Trail --> Elk Ridge --> Sleepy Trail.

To start out it's a fairly easy stroll through some meadows with more "rolling mountains" in the background. If you go early enough and beat all of the mountain bikers, you can normally spot some deer roaming around. While I normally like the steeper mountains, it was a nice change of pace to get these views as well.

After you get through the meadows portion, you start getting into a slightly wooded area that starts switch-backing up the mountain. It was a little warm when we went so the shade was greatly appreciated. As you work your way up, the views continue to get better and better. The picture below is a view from the very top looking back down into the meadows and Evergreen to your left. As you can see, it's a decent trek up even though it's not too steep at any given point in time.

Here is another view from the top that looks off into some snow-capped peaks in the distance.

Overall I would say this hike was slightly better than Mount Falcon due to the views being a little better and it was less crowded overall. If you do the full loop, you end up going a little over 10 miles with ~2,000 elevation gain.

Mount Falcon

It's finally getting that time of year again when we can start hiking and not freeze our butts off. To start out the season Ali and I normally like to start out on the front range where there isn't much snow and try to get back into hiking shape. This year we decided to start out with Mount Falcon Castle Trail. According to AllTrails, it's about 7.9 miles with an 1,827 foot elevation gain however we did a slight variation, Castle Trail --> Meadow Trail --> Tower Trail --> Meadow Trail --> Castle Trail --> Turkey Trot Trail. This prevented us from doing the typical down and back and gave us a different view of Red Rocks in the distance.

Overall I'd say the hike is fairly moderate and provides some good views of the front range. It starts out gradually sloping up some switchbacks that provides you a good view of Red Rocks as seen below.

Once you get off the front of the mountain, it levels out a little until you get to the "castle" portion of the hike. This mansion was owned by John Brisben Walker and dates back to around 1909. Most families seemed to stop here and head back down but if you continue up, that is where the best views are.

The picture below is from the Eagle Eye Shelton. It was very well made and a great place to bring lunch or take a break. If you continue up to the Tower Trail, you then reach the Fire Tower which has a good view of Denver and Red Rocks.

All in all it was a pretty good trail to start the year out on. My only complaint is that there were a lot of bikers on the trail so we continually had to get out of the way for them.

Steamboat Springs

Now that I got my 1 beachy post out of the way, it's time to get back to the mountains. So this year Ali and I got the Rocky Mountain Super Pass Plus, which gives us 3 days at Steamboat Springs. Steamboat has always been a place I've wanted to go since I've heard so many good things about. So we went!

Unlike the Crested Butte drive, getting to Steamboat was very easy and we didn't have any weather issues or 50+ mph winds through some of the flatter areas. You get a nice mix of steeper peaks and rolling mountains which makes it a pretty scenic drive.

Once we got to Steamboat, we drove through the main section of town where the larger stores and resorts were and headed to the smaller "old school" downtown section. There is a little family owned hotel called Nordic Lodge towards the end of the strip, which is where we stayed. It was pretty low key but had exactly what we wanted, a hot tub and breakfast. Overall I'd definitely recommend staying here since it's a 2 min walk to the bus stop which takes you to the lefts in about 10 - 15 min and you can get to the majority of the restaurants within 5 - 7 min walk. It's also nice because it's dog friendly, so we could bring Deuce along with us.

Since we're talking about the town, I'll do a quick breakdown of where we ate/drank/hung out.

• Carl's Tavern - This was the closest thing I could find to a sports bar in the smaller downtown area. They had quite a few larger TVs and nicer bar food.
• Sake2U - The second day we were craving sushi and after speaking to quite a few people, they recommend this place. It's right on the river and off the main strip by a block or 2 which makes it a very laid back place to have a drink and the sushi was really good. They had the outdoor section closed off because of it being cold but during the summer you can sit outside by the river.
• Sambi Canton Restaurant - Sambi is a general Asian style restaurant with Thai, Chinese, and Japanese dishes. We both had the drunken noodles and overall it was pretty good but it didn't have very many vegetables or meet in it. The majority of the dish was noodles so I would highly recommend ordering extra veggies/meats if you get it.
• VFW - There weren't a whole lot of places to play pool, darts, shuffleboard, etc. The VFW was nice because we were the only people in there and we were able to drink and play games pretty cheap.

So besides eating and drinking, we did actually hit the mountain. As I said earlier, it was about a 10 - 15 min bus ride to the gondola which took you to the main section of the mountain. Unlike most mountains where you primarily come down the front side of it and maybe have a back bowl or 2, Steamboat has a lot of unique places where multiple lifts will funnel you down into one location. Once you get the hang of it I really liked it, but there were a few times we had to take multiple lifts to get where we truly wanted to be.

They had a great combination of greens, blues, and blacks so no matter what skill level you are, Steamboat has plenty to offer. Below is a pretty nice picture of the main portion of the town as we were heading down for the day as well as a picture of us on the east side of the mountain and one of the west side.

The first 2 days we were there it was nothing but sunshine and groomed runs. When we got up the third day it had snowed about 3 inches and was still coming down lightly at the bottom of the mountain, however the top of the mountain was a completely different story. The first picture shows a storm front moving through from one of the lower lifts. It doesn't look too bad from down there but as you can see from the second picture, it was slightly windy. We only did 2 runs on the top of the mountain before they closed those lifts down due to windy conditions.

All in all, Steamboat is probably my favorite mountain town/ski resort combination. You still can't beat the small town charm of Crested Butte, but it has a lot to offer with both a larger and small town feel depending on where you are. If I had to pick, it was my favorite mountain we hit all year.

Scuba Diving in Roatan

Since my last few posts have been about hiking and snowboarding, I figured it was time to mix it up a little bit. Every year, Ali and I try to go on one big scuba trip and this year we decided to go to Roatan. For those of you who don't know, Roatan is a fairly small island just west of Honduras and is part of the Mesoamerican Barrier Reef. It's pretty popular for beaches, cruise ship terminals, and most importantly... diving!

We flew out of Denver on 2/19/17 and hopped through Houston to get there. Overall it was a pretty easy trip but definitely pricier than some of the other more well traveled Caribbean destinations. Once we got there, our resort had a shuttle waiting for us and it was about a 15 - 20 min bus ride to Anthony's Key Resort.

We'll start out talking about the resort. It was very nice and I would highly recommend it to anyone. The huts are broken down by location. There are some on the hillside, a few on the docks, and the majority are on a small island that is less than a minute boat ride away. We stayed on the docks and I believe that's the best location there is. We had a great view of the sunset, the island, and could quickly walk to the main dining area without taking the boat. The first picture below is the view from a two story deck in front of our hut and the second picture is a view of our hut from the small island.

While we're still talking about the resort, we'll get one of the most important things out of the way, how was the food? Overall I was very pleased with the food situation. They had one main dining area where you were had breakfast, lunch, and dinner. You got to come as you wanted and there were at least 3 - 4 options for meal. The eating area was up on the hill so there was a very nice view of the water as you can see from the picture below. They also had a bar there as well as a poolside bar on the island which had happy hour every day. It's hard to beat a $6 margarita and a 2 for 1 happy hour deal.

Now that we got that out of the way, it's time to talk about the diving. Anthony's Key Resort is made specifically for divers and/or snorkelers. Since we were diving, each person was assigned a specific boat and dive master for the week where we would mark down how many dives we wanted to do the next day. We normally did an 8:45 am, 10:30 am, and 2:30 pm dive and if you wanted to, they also had night diving. One great thing about the diving here compared to other locations is how close the dive sites are. On average, we were on the boat for less than 7 minutes to get to the various sites and then came back to the resort for our surface interval so we didn't have to stay on the boat the entire time. Another huge benefit is for 2 of the days, the waves were fairly large on the west side of the island, so they bused us over to the east side of the island where the waters were very calm and we got to dive that area. It's nice having a backup plan so windy conditions won't cause you to miss any dives. Also, if you didn't feel like diving that day, you could always jump on one of the snorkeling boats.

I can't say enough about our dive master Marvin and boat captain Jo-Jo. They were very energetic and passionate about their job and it made a huge difference for everyone on the boat. Throughout our dives, we averaged 40 - 60 ft. depth with 110 being our max on a wreck dive. The water was pretty clear averaging around 80 - 90 ft. visibility. While we didn't get to see any sharks, we saw quite a few turtles, rays, grouper, barracuda, etc. Below are a few pictures, but more can be found here.

One quick side note, they also have a dolphin area where you can pay a little extra and hang out with them. While we want to pay for this, we still got some pretty good pictures.

All in all, it was an amazing vacation and I'd highly recommend it to anyone. I'm slightly biased thought since Ali and I got engaged the first night we were there and it was my birthday the next day! Ali didn't say this specifically, but I'm assuming this is what she was thinking when I asked her. I think it means yes or victory!

Crested Butte

I've been pretty lazy on blogging lately. It's mainly been because hiking season is over and we've just been snowboarding at Copper Mountain and Winter Park/Mary Jane. While these 2 places are amazing, there are only so many pictures and comments you can make about the runs. However this last weekend Ali and I had a 4 day weekend to Crested Butte, so that gave me an excuse to post some pics and talk about our trip.

If you've been looking at snow reports at all this year, you know that Crested Butte has been getting absolutely slammed with snow. About 2 weeks ago they were getting 90+ inches over a 7 day span. Luckily we weren't there for the insane amounts of snow but still got to see the aftermath of it and got a little over a foot of fresh snow while we were there. Below is a picture from our hotel, Elk Mountain Lodge, the second morning.

As you can see, there is still a little bit of snow around town. Here is another pretty cool picture of a colorful house followed by a picture of Elk Ave. The town was really nice and since our hotel was just 2 blocks from Elk Ave, everything was less than a 4 block walk.

So since we're talking about the town, I'll give you my quick rundown on places we ate, drank, or stayed in case you find yourself in the area.

• Elk Mountain Lodge
• This was our hotel and was a very good bang for your buck. As I mentioned earlier, it was only 2 blocks from the main strip, which is also where the bus picks you up to take you to the resort. It had a bed and breakfast feel to it as the owners fixed you breakfast every day but you didn't have to sit down formally and wait for others. They also had a bar and hot tub which were a huge plus after a long day of boarding.
• The Secret Stash
• This is probably the  most well-known restaurant in town and rightfully so. It's a pizza joint with a very unique India vibe to it. We had the Buddha's Belly pizza and it was amazing. I would highly recommend eating here.
• Montanya Distillers
• If you are interested in small plates or just want some interesting drinks, this rum distillery is a good option. They have a wide variety of drinks that you've probably never heard of before.
• The Dogwood
• Similar to Montanya, The Dogwood is a great cocktail bar with small plates and drinks. I had to Google what the majority of the ingredients were in the drinks so it was a fun experience. Ali got a beets drink which sounds horrible to me but she loved it.
• The Last Steep Bar & Grill
• The Last Steep is a pretty low key bar with good food and strong drinks. They have a lot of vegetarian options if you need them and their shrimp po boy was really good. 
• Bonez
• We stopped in here one day for happy hour which I would highly recommend. You can get bottomless chips and salsa for $1 with 3 different types of salsa + $5 margaritas. The atmosphere is "day of the dead" and was fun to hang out there.
• Kochevar's Saloon
• After some Googling, this was the only place we found that had bar games to play. It's a pretty low key environment with 3 dart boards, 2 pool tables, and shuffle board. If you want some average priced drinks while playing games, you need to come here.
• Ryce Asian Bistro
• So we had to get our fix of Thai food and saw this place had drunken noodles and were sold. It was pretty packed when we went there and service was pretty good for how busy they were. The drunken noodles was a good portion but it was 95% noodles and not very many vegetables. While it was good, if you get it, I'd ask for extra meat and vegetables.

Now that we got that out of the way, it's time to talk about the mountain. Our first day it was sunny and the majority of our runs were either groomers or getting off in the trees for some untouched snow. The Red Lady Express Lift is the first lift you see once you get to the resort. It only services very low key green runs so I would recommend against this lift unless you are a beginner.

One of our favorite lifts was the Paradise and East River Express. This is where the majority of the blues are and you are able to take quite a few routes in and out of the trees, moguls, etc. Below is a picture at the top of the East River Express.

Our next day on the mountain was nothing but powder. The night before they got about a foot of snow and everywhere you went, you were the first ones making a path. Since it made things quite a bit slower, I spent the majority of the day on the Silver Queen Express Lift. This lift is primary blacks and double blacks. The second picture below is from the run "International" which was probably my favorite run on the mountain.

The last day on the mountain was a good mix of some fresh snow early in the morning and sunshine in the afternoon. Overall I really enjoyed the mountain but it's definitely a lot smaller than Copper, Beaver, Breck, etc. so you tend to repeat runs quite a bit. If I did more extreme terrain of double blacks, then I see a huge appeal of this mountain as they have some very steep terrain on the north face of the mountain. However, it's not nearly as touristy as other locations in Colorado right now so smaller lift lines were amazing. If you've never been, I highly recommend checking out Crested Butte.